Return to Index

The Vocation of the Elderly.

26^th July 2005. Elderly people’s nursing home.

Patricia. X and myself were saying the Rosary together before lunch around the grounds of the convent and nursing home. I wondered about the elderly people living in the nursing home, Our Lord said:

Jesus. There is no retirement for Catholic Christian elderly people. This time of life gives you time to pray for the salvation of souls, time for your own purification and time to make generous offerings of reparation. There is no spiritual retirement!

1st October 1994. Feast of St. Therese of the Child Jesus. Nazareth House. Evening Prayer. Instruction to the elderly.

Jesus. We will now continue the instruction on poverty (message 12^th September 1994).

We have spoken of a sensitivity to the needs of the poor and how it is possible to keep the poor company, in accepting with joy what is set before you (circumstances and food). Waste not, so the poor will want not, and give alms where I go hungry or naked, thirsty or homeless in others.

(Patricia. This is in temporal things, but Our Lord also meant the spiritually poor. We should bear with those who live in great spiritual poverty. We should bear the many trials and sufferings of this life, even persecution from others, and eat with joy this poor spiritual food, for the sake of souls. We should try to bear with difficult people for our own sins, which are so often grievous, when we consider the wonderful graces we have been given.)

Jesus. Let us turn now to the poverty of old age and the frailty of the sick and the elderly. This time of frailty and failing faculties is a time of purification, and for the old an opportunity for their final purification. The elderly should appreciate the kindness of the hand that hurts in order to heal the disordered soul; it is a time precious in My sight.

Patricia. Oh Lord, You are so good, so good to poor souls!

Jesus. The elderly and the sick, more than others, must bear many humiliations; the humiliation of a failing memory, poor digestion, confusion of mind, weakness of limbs and tiredness. The sick and the elderly are often treated like children and spoken to as if their minds are as weak as their bodies.

A proud soul will resent this and become angry; a more mature soul will rejoice to have become the little child who is being prepared for heaven. Other souls become like spoilt and demanding children - they become childish rather than childlike. They use their failing health and age as a weapon of war and test even the most generous souls. To these selfish children I say: “Beware, if you do not accept the purification, the final purification for the opportunities missed in this world will be paid to the last penny in the next”!

‘Unless you become like little children you cannot enter the Kingdom’ of Heaven, or be led to heaven by the little Childhood of My Innocent Infancy. (Patricia. Our Lord was referring to the words, ‘A little Child shall lead them.’)

So you see, by accepting the poverty of your frailty with great patience, and by offering this poverty with all its humiliations to Me in union with My Perfect Sacrifice on the Cross, we can go out together and seek souls that are lost. With your poverty, in union with the poor and out of concern for them, which is My concern growing in your souls, we can win souls for heaven. The lost will be brought home to My Father's House and you will gain your own sanctification.

Jesus. Within this Novitiate you will truly grow in stature and wisdom and walk with ever-growing strength in the way of Love!